A "Crumby" Business All Around

Scandals of abuse by a few, whether in government or in finance, are undermining confidence of many.

Picking up crumbs under the table. That was how the wife of Sherman McCoy, the rich, Wall Street protagonist of The Bonfire of the Vanities, derisively described to their young daughter what her bond-trader father did for a living. Arcane arbitrage trades produced pennies on the dollar, but when multiplied over millions, those pennies added up to fabulous sums -- enough to buy a Park Avenue co-op costing $3 million!

That number alone should tell you how much things have changed in the decades since Tom Wolfe wrote his tale...